Using ‘Messy’ by Lola Young to Understand Romantic Decadence
I’m going to use Messy by Lola Young as a symbol, which contains knowledge of contemporary decadent romanticism.[i] A symbol is a vehicle for contemplation. Instead of meditating on whatever mundane thing sits in front of you, clearing your mind entirely, or merely allowing one’s mind to wander haphazardly, symbols regulate possible mind wanderings. Somewhere between total freedom of thought and its absence, symbolic contemplation allows for creative insight into reality. Distinct from rational thought, which follows syllogistic reasoning in a narrow line, symbolic thought is about producing insights or a new frame. In Hermetic tradition, the frame underlying a symbol is an arcana. Literally, arcanum means “hidden;” Latin arca means “chest” or “box,” implying something is locked away. Thus, a symbol is the key.
In Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, wherein tarot cards are treated as symbols for contemplation, Valentin Tomberg put it this way:
For the Major Arcana of the Tarot are authentic symbols, i.e. they are “magic, mental psychic and moral operations” awakening new notions, ideas, sentiments and aspirations, which means to say that they require an activity more profound than that of study and intellectual explanation. It is therefore in a state of deep contemplation – and always ever deeper – that they should be approached. And it is the deep and intimate layers of the soul which become active and bear fruit when one meditates on the Arcana of the Tarot… [they] are neither allegories nor secrets, because allegories are, in fact, only figurative representations of abstract notions, and secrets are only facts, procedures, practices, or whatever doctrines that one keeps to oneself for a personal motive, since they are able to be understood and put into practice by others whom one does not want to reveal them. The Major Arcana of the Tarot are authentic symbols. They conceal and reveal their sense at one and the same time according to the depth of meditation. That which they reveal are not secrets, i.e. things hidden by human will, but are arcana, which is something quite different. An arcanum is that which it is necessary to “know” in order to be fruitful in a given domain of spiritual life. It is that which must be actively present in our consciousness – or even in our subconscious - in order to render us capable of making discoveries, engendering new ideas, conceiving of new artistic subjects. In a word, it makes us fertile in our creative pursuits, in whatever domain of spiritual life (p. 4).[ii]
Compared to explicit and literal language, symbols conceal. However, they are not intrinsically occult. They aren’t trying to cover things up. They aren’t a practice in obscurantist prose, like the labyrinthine language of academics, designed to conceal the emptiness of their ideas. They are trying to help you see, not merely reason. Deep contemplation can help organize your mind such that your rationality, those explicit forms of reason, aren’t mere practices in post hoc rationalizing, but fruitful aspirations to truth.
It is in this spirit that I will use the song Messy by Lola Young, and the surrounding imagery, as a symbol. To some, this might seem trivial – stupid even. Messy is a run-of-the-mill pop song. “It isn’t that deep.” And in some sense, I agree. However, Lola Young and co-writer Conor Dickinson are honest. Their honesty will make our practice more straightforward. There is less noise. Thus, we can unlock a vision of contemporary psychology and culture.
Besides the writers’ honesty, I’ve chosen this song because I like it. It’s catchy. I believe that liking this song will reduce the likelihood that this essay will devolve into mere criticism. Any critical points I’m making about the psychological trends I see in Messy are not me trolling or attacking the artist. Any reference to Lola is really a reference to her imago, the ‘character’ she portrays in the song. Her real-life person may or may not correspond to this character. Who knows? But what is certain is who is portrayed through the music and surrounding art. It is that person, the image of Lola, that I’m utilizing as a symbol.
To begin, let’s focus on the chorus:
'Cause I'm too messy, and then I'm too fucking clean
You told me, "Get a job," then you ask where the hell I've been
And I'm too perfect 'til I open my big mouth
I want to be me, is that not allowed?
And I'm too clever, and then I'm too fucking dumb
You hate it when I cry, unless it's that time of the month
And I'm too perfect 'til I show you that I'm not
A thousand people I could be for you, and you hate the fucking lot
There’s a fractured identity here. Lola isn’t sure who she’s meant to be. She could be messy or clean, quiet or chatty, clever or dumb. In fact, she could be, “a thousand people.” Lola isn’t one thing; she flickers between many different identities without settling on a stable one. And none of these identities seem to be the ‘right’ one.
Why is this? Throughout, Lola is talking about her partner, who seems unsatisfied with everything she does. What this reveals is that her partner is the standard against which a good or bad self is judged. Which personality is ‘right’ is determined by him. Not because he is necessarily a tyrant that demands she behave one way or the next, but because Lola herself has given him this power.
Human beings are purpose-driven animals. Those purposes determine what aspects of ourselves are useful (good) or not (bad) for our purpose. Like a screwdriver is great for assembling a desk and terrible for eating dinner, our anger, humor, or loquacity may be good or bad depending on our purpose. In this instance, Lola’s purpose is her partner. He has been elevated to her highest value, and then, like a screwdriver is compared against its purpose, she compares herself against his standards. This is idolatry, the elevation of a purpose above its station. This makes Lola a romantic, who seeks a God figure in her partner.
In his magnum opus, The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker discussed the consequences of the "death of God.[iii]" For Becker, human beings are intrinsically purpose-driven, and we derive meaning in life from those purposes. God, for premodern peoples, provided this purpose. We pursued God as an ideal, and that gave us a sense of meaning. In modern times, we lost our belief in God and therefore, our highest purpose, but this did not erase the need for meaning. Becker puts it this way:
He [or humanity] still needed to feel heroic, to know that his life mattered in the scheme of things; he still had to be specially ‘good’ for something truly special. Also, he still had to merge himself with some higher, self-absorbing meaning, in trust and in gratitude… If he no longer had God, how was he to do this (p. 160)?
One solution to this problem, says Becker, was to transfer the God-role onto another object. While discussing the work of Otto Rank, the psychoanalyst and student of Sigmund Freud, Becker notes that one such object is another person:
he fixed his urge to cosmic heroism onto another person in the form of a love object. The self-glorification that he needed in his innermost nature he now looked for in the love partner. The love partner becomes the divine ideal within which to fulfill one’s life. All spiritual and moral needs now become focused in one individual” (p. 160).
In this light, we can understand why it is that Lola feels thrown from one identity to the next. She has placed her partner onto a divine pedestal, viewing his throwaway remarks as dictates about who she should be. Idols are a ceiling on our attention. Instead of inspiring us to something beyond itself, it confuses the highest possible ideal with itself. Like the cult leader gathers up the attention of his followers, the idol says, “there is nothing beyond me.” Uncomfortably, the idol cannot do this without the consent of the governed. The idolizer is an active participant in the grift. Praying that this idol will give them what they yearn for, the idolizer fixates on the idol, who is more than happy to eat up their attention.
Clearly, there are consequences to idolizing your partner. The lyrics suggest that Lola’s partner is a chaotic personality. What he likes is in flux, leading to uncertain standards for Lola’s behavior. If he was a singular personality, certain of what he likes and doesn’t, then his standards would be clear and which personality Lola ‘ought to be’ would be obvious. Of course, there would still be major downsides to idolizing her partner, but the whiplash Lola experiences would be dampened.
Alternatively, if Lola had a higher purpose than her partner, then their chaotic standards wouldn’t be a problem. He could sway with the wind and Lola would remain focused on her aim, seeing the ways that her partner’s behaviors related to that purpose and were, therefore, good or bad. Thus, we can tell that Lola is just as chaotic as her partner. She doesn’t know who she is, derives her sense of self in relation to her partner, and, because her partner is chaotic, she descends into deeper chaos.
Often peculiarly partnered with idolization and chaos is decadence: “I want to be me, is that not allowed?” It is as if there is a perfect self hidden beneath her disoriented presentation that is being trampled by the complaints of her partner. If only she was free to express her hidden self, to its fullest, then things would be perfect.
One of the most famous lines in philosophy comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (p. 1).[iv] Rousseau believed that man and nature were pristine beauties, trampled upon by mechanistic society, with its rules, labors, and disciplines. Implicit is the assumption that humanity is intrinsically good and it is civilization that interrupts the full expression of their goodness. If only society’s strictures could be removed, then we could have peace.
Messy implies that the “me” that is “not allowed” is good. However, the opposite assumption could be just as easily made. Is the sadist’s impulse to harm being tyrannically and unfairly repressed by the state? Should he be allowed to express his true self fully? Our nearest cousins, the chimpanzees, patrol their territory and shred any wandering chimps from other tribes.[v] Sparagmos is in our nature. To express that nature is to rend and tear. In essence, the Lola of Messy believes she is intrinsically infallible and the expression of herself is naturally good. Thus, the defiant, “is that not allowed?”
Decadence assumes that one is intrinsically good, and that includes any impulsive, even self-destructive, indulgence in the passions. This is an entropic philosophy: If I am already good, and any demand by society, including the socialization which enables us to form relationships with others, is a tyranny that must be “deconstructed,” then all our learned skills (e.g., negotiation, emotional regulation, occupational skills, grammar, etc.) are immoral impositions – the straight jacket of an authoritarian society. Decadence seeks to dismantle these skills to allow for the full release of chthonic impulse. Thus, Lola is in chaos, in part, because she believes that her myriad impulses, which are detrimental to her psychic maturation, must be expressed.
The music video for the song depicts Lola, alone in a room, stomping around in a tutu. Her appearance is childish. At one point, a large birthday cake appears. Like an infant in a highchair unable to use a fork and content to shovel cake into its mouth, Lola makes a terrible mess. The Rousseauist assumption that order and decorum need to be dismantled inevitably leads to an undoing of the disciplines of adulthood. It is infantilizing and reflected in the temper tantrum displayed by the stomping, swearing, mess-making Lola.
In the face of Rousseau’s decadence, we are tempted towards Hobbesian cynicism. Thomas Hobbes, an extremely influential philosopher, when pondering life in its natural state, declared, “And the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (p. 103).[vi] Hobbes is the ‘opposite’ of Rousseau. Rousseau viewed our natural state as pristine and good; Hobbes viewed our natural state as barbarous and vile. The truth is, we are neither intrinsically good nor bad. Initially, we are unformed. Good or bad are not intrinsic elements of our capacities. Rather, our goodness emerges from our relationship with the highest good, which, over the full course of our life, forms us into its shape.
Cognitive psychologist John Vervaeke, while contemplating and seeking to transcend the work of Henry Corbin and Carl Jung, coined the “sacred second self.[vii]” The sacred second self is who you could be. It is who you aspire to be. By pursuing a high purpose through the higher self, one’s unformed capacities are brought into alignment with a purpose. One’s chaotic nature is molded into the form of a purpose. Your anger, sadness, happiness, rationality, empathy, and all your capacities are calibrated to this purpose. In essence, from who-you-are, who-you-could-be draws out a higher you. This process, insofar as one’s purpose is good, is good.
In conclusion, Messy is a decadent romantic song. It is decadent in that it betrays an assumption that one’s hidden self is intrinsically good, and it is society, responsibility, and the burdens of adulthood that tyrannize immaculate self-expression. It is romantic in that it elevates the romantic partner to highest position in a hierarchy of values. In doing so, the Lola imago is a fractured identity defined by the many whims of her partner – instead of being honed by the judgement of a higher purpose. Today, this is a popular demeanor. I hope that contemplating this song and its surrounding imagery has helped clarify the decadent romantic pattern ubiquitous in our culture and see the fruitful alternatives.
[i] Young, L. Messy (2025). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-k2_Liofy8&pp=ygUQbG9sYSB5b3VuZyBtZXNzeQ%3D%3D
[ii] Tomberg, V. (2002). Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism. Tarcher.
[iii] Becker, E (1997). The Denial of Death. Free Press.
[iv] Rousseau, J. (1968). The Social Contract. Penguin Classics.
[v] Martínez-Íñigo, L., et al. (2021). Intercommunity interactions and killings in central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) from Loango National Park, Gabon. Primates. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8410688/
[vi] Hobbes, T. (2017). Leviathan. Penguin Classics.
[vii] Vervaeke, J. (2020). Ep, 29 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis – Corbin and Jung. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkykBqApP4A&pp=ygUkYXdha2VuaW5nIGZyb20gdGhlIG1lYW5pbmcgY3Jpc2lzIDQ5